If Libya goes the way of Western interests, it will be next stop Algeria, says Sukant Chandan.

Why are Africa’s leading regional bodies not stepping up to protect and defend refugees and migrant workers in Libya, asks Nunu Kidane.

Is Gaddafi crazy, as the Western media would have us believe, asks H. Nanjala Nyabola, or merely good at manipulating a deeply flawed system for his own benefit?

Gado wonders if a bit of mutual support between Gaddafi and Kenya's leaders might arise.

If Gaddafi goes, who's going to bankroll the African Union, wonders Gado.

cc Has the UN Security Council cynically deflected its responsibility to the International Criminal Court through its referral of Muammar Gaddafi and his regime to the court? Tim Murithi critiques the decision.

More than 191,000 people have fled the violence in Libya, according to a report by the UN's Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), citing figures from the International Organisation for Migration. People fleeing Libya for Tunisia said they had to pass through dozens of checkpoints on their way from Tripoli, the capital, and that they had been robbed by Gaddafi's security forces.

As pro-democracy forces advance toward Gaddafi's main strongholds, the dictator of Libya is stepping up efforts to retake regions lost to the rebellion. Amidst an almost complete Internet and media blackout, videos still manage to be leaked, giving us a glimpse of what's happening on the ground. This post from Global Voices contains a round-up of the videos that emerged.

Opposition forces in Libya are bracing for a prolonged campaign in their bid to overthrow the regime of Muammar Gaddafi, the country's long-time leader, as their fighters battle to repulse ferocious assaults by government soldiers. Forces loyal to Gaddafi have attacked several rebel-held cities along the country's coastline in a bid to halt the anti-government forces' rapid advance to the capital Tripoli. Dozens have died in a dramatic escalation of the conflict gripping the oil-rich North African nation.

This map shows fighting in Zawiyah, Misrata, Bin Jawad and Ras Lanuf as the Tripoli government tries to claw back gains made by the rebels.

An Israeli company is recruiting mercenaries to support Moammar Gadhafi’s efforts to suppress an uprising against his regime, an Israeli news site said Tuesday. Citing Egyptian sources, the Hebrew-language news site Inyan Merkazi said the company was run by retired Israeli army commanders.

Is Tripoli being set up for a civil war to justify US and NATO military intervention in oil-rich Libya, asks Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya. Are the talks about sanctions a prelude to an Iraq-like intervention?

‘As all of us, and as the international community continues to give understandable solidarity to the self-proclaimed revolutionaries of Libya, it is also important that we give equal weight the condemnation of reported atrocities now surfacing against dark-skinned people (Black Africans) by the revolutionaries, or by those acting in the name of the revolution,’ writes Wazir Mohamed from Ledestein, Guyana, South America.

The African Union sends over a special team to advise Gaddafi...

Amidst reports that Ghana is trying to evacuate 10,000 of its citizens from Libya as Arab freedom fighters mistake ordinary black Africans for Gaddafi-hired mercenaries, Cameron Duodu remembers the last time Libya posed a threat to his compatriots.

Those who have solidarity with the Libyan uprising must not only support the people in Libya but also ‘denounce any attempts by the Western forces for military intervention’, argues Horace Campbell, in an interview with Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman.

The General Assembly suspended Libya from the United Nations Human Rights Council on 1 March for 'gross and systematic' human rights violations because of President Muammar Al-Qadhafi’s violent repression of peaceful protesters demanding his ouster. The vote by the 192-member Assembly, for which a two-thirds majority was required, followed a request from the Geneva-based Council itself that it suspend the North African country – one of the top UN right’s body’s 47 elected members – and was passed by acclamation.

Unrest in Libya has cut off a 3,000km supply route the World Food Programme has used since 2004 to bring food to tens of thousands of Sudanese refugees and displaced Chadians in eastern Chad. 'WFP used the Libya corridor for about 40 per cent of its food aid to Sudanese refugees and displaced Chadians,' Jean-Luc Siblot, WFP representative in Chad, told IRIN. When unrest erupted in Libya, 11,000 tons of cereals and pulses were ready for discharge at Libya’s Benghazi port to be transported to eastern Chad. The two vessels carrying food have since been re-routed to Port Sudan, Siblot said.

The UN refugee agency has said it is 'increasingly concerned' about the dangers for civilians inadvertently caught up in the mounting violence in Libya, especially asylum-seekers and refugees. 'We have no access at this time to the refugee community. Over the past months we have been trying to regularise our presence in Libya, and this has constrained our work,' Melissa Fleming, UNHCR's chief spokesperson, told journalists in Geneva.

Gaddafi's running out of scapegoats, says Gado.